Samsung Galaxy S5's screen is far from the best, here's why

The Samsung Galaxy S5's screen turned out so controversial when the phone came out last month, that fans were instantly split between those who held that it's the best mobile screen ever, and those who believed that the screen was good, but could be a lot better. We ended up in the latter group, and while we've explained our reasons time and time again, we think this topic deserves one final and conclusive post, just to make things extra clear.

We know some readers like to point at a fairly popular source of screen analysis, who recently claimed that the GS5 has the most accurate phone screen ever (we're looking at you, DisplayMate). Shortly afterwards, numerous reports, including ours, stated the opposite. In short - no, the Galaxy S5 does not have the most accurate screen, and it's actually very far from that. Here's why...

The GS5 offers you a number of 'screen modes', which tweak the color reproduction characteristics of its Super AMOLED screen. We've measured them all (using gear and software designed for this purpose), and have concluded that none of its screen modes offer image that could be considered accurate or true-to-life. Note that all of our measurements have been made at 200 nits, but we've also made sure to check if things don't get better if we crank the brightness all the way up - they don't.

Color temperature

The default mode of the GS5's display is 'Standard mode', and it has a very high color temperature of about 8100 K. With the reference point for screen color temperature being 6500 K, this means that the Samsung Galaxy S5 will display colors that are decidedly bluish (cold). This is so, because the blue color, reproduced by the display, has a higher intensity than the other main colors - red and green. Meanwhile, handsets equipped with quality IPS LCD screens exhibit color temp that's much closer to the standard, often gravitating around the 7000 K mark. If you set the Galaxy S5 to the so-called Cinema mode, its color temperature gets considerably better at around 7300 K, but there's still a lot of red color lacking, making for visuals that we'd describe as 'lifeless'.

In the series of greyscale charts right below, you can easily see how the color temperature of the Galaxy S5's different screen modes differs from the reference one. In the fifth image, you'll see the Nexus 5's greyscale - we've put the measurements of its IPS LCD display for reference. Obviously, the measured levels of grey in the Nexus 5's image are much closer to the reference ones than any of the Galaxy S5's.

Standard mode - the white balance has a decidedly bluish tint

Professional mode - things get considerably better, but still appear greenish

Delta E

Another component is Delta E, which represents the average amount of 'color error' exhibited by the display in question. This is another area where it gets obvious that there's quite a bit of room for improvement for Samsung's Super AMOLED screens. In short, Delta E values have to be as low as possible to indicate a more color-accurate display. It's believed that Delta E values below 2 basically mean a level of color inaccuracy that's pretty much undetectable by the human eye. For the Galaxy S5 in Standard mode, these figures stand at 5.08 (when measuring the three primary plus three secondary colors (red, green, blue + cyan, magenta, yellow)), and 7.38 when measuring a grayscale (depends on the balance between the three primary colors). These numbers are quite high, when you take into account the significantly lower Delta E values of IPS LCD handsets like the iPhone 5s or One (M8). For the 5s, these same numbers stand at 3.36 and 2.66, and for the M8, they are 4.33 and 4.82. In the greyscale Delta E measurement, the Galaxy S5's 7.38 value is so high, because the measurement is detecting a massive imbalance between the primary colors - blue and green are much more intensive than red.

Switching to the overly-hyped Cinema mode, things get slightly better on paper (Delta E greyscale of 5.86 and Delta E rgbcmy of 3.97), because all colors get desaturated a bit, pulling them closer towards the reference values. Still, this doesn't really cut it here, because it all just makes for an undersaturated red, as well as blue and green colors that are still beyond the desired intensity. So, yeah, things start looking a bit better on paper, but in reality, the picture that comes out appears dull and mostly greenish, with color temp that is still high.

Keep in mind that the following color charts are designed to show how big the differences are between the measured and reference colors, and not to depict how any of these colors should actually look in reality.

In the following images, we're comparing the color reproduction of the Galaxy S5 to that of the Nexus 5, which we've chosen for a reference display. The Nexus 5 has a way more accurate display and better color balance. Take a look at the visual differences below!

This picture reveals the GS5's tendency to over-intensify the green colors, as a result of which, the columns of the bridge, as well as the rocks appear unnaturally-green.

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Take a look at how overly-blue the pavement behind John V. looks on the screen of the GS5, in comparison with that of the Nexus 5. In addition, John's skin looks much livelier on the Nexus 5's display, due to sufficient red color.

image

The natural tone of the sand in this image on the Nexus 5 contrasts the duller and colder look of the sand on the GS5. Definitely not how such scenery should look!

image

Another sand image. On the Galaxy S5, it has a suspiciously greenish tint to it, whereas the one on the Nexus 5 looks warmer and makes you want to just lay on it and enjoy the sun.

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Note that the white tiger appears bluish/greenish on the screen of the Galaxy S5, compared to that of the Nexus 5, which delivers a more natural white balance.

Color reproduction comparison between Nexus 5 and Galaxy S5

1. This picture reveals the GS5's tendency to over-intensify the green colors, as a result of which, the columns of the bridge, as well as the rocks appear unnaturally-green.

2. Take a look at how overly-blue the pavement behind John V. looks on the screen of the GS5, in comparison with that of the Nexus 5. In addition, John's skin looks much livelier on the Nexus 5's display, due to sufficient red color.

3. The natural tone of the sand in this image on the Nexus 5 contrasts the duller and colder look of the sand on the GS5. Definitely not how such scenery should look!

4. Another sand image. On the Galaxy S5, it has a suspiciously greenish tint to it, whereas the one on the Nexus 5 looks warmer and makes you want to just lay on it and enjoy the sun.

5. Note that the white tiger appears bluish/greenish on the screen of the Galaxy S5, compared to that of the Nexus 5, which delivers a more natural white balance.

Color gamut

We often hear: "This screen has incredible color range, because it covers ~130% of the sRGB gamut!" If you came across such kind of statement - you'd do yourself a favor if you disregard it. First of all, even if a display covers more colors than what's outlined by the sRGB standard, that in no way means that color balance will be right and everything will look good, let alone better than an sRGB-compliant displаy. Having a larger color gamut simply means that the display in question is capable of reproducing a wider spectrum of colors. That's good, but the thing is that mobile operating systems aren't color-calibrated, meaning that the display will take a certain color and reproduce a different color, because no software tells it exactly what color should be displayed. That's bad, because colors on such a display won't look as intended. The sRGB standard is universally used by most media available out there, including the Internet, and operating systems, such as Android. This means that the color characteristics of interface elements, applications, etc. are all designed with sRGB colors in mind. If your display cannot "read" those colors correctly, it'll display them differently. Such is the case with the Super AMOLED screen of the Android-powered Galaxy S5. For example, there might be a web page with light blue design elements, but on the GS5, there's a big chance that it'll appear as a more intense, more saturated form of blue - meaning you won't be seeing things as they are supposed to look. End of story. That's what's bad about having such a wide-gamut display on a smartphone.

Right underneath this paragraph, you'll see a series of color gamut charts, showcasing the measurements we've made with the Galaxy S5's screen in all its different modes. As you can see, in pretty much all modes, the dots (representing the actual measured data) are way out of the highlighted triangle, which represents the sRGB standard color space. This suggests colors that are way too intense than they are supposed to be. In normal circumstances, if we had a perfectly calibrated display, the dots would be positioned right inside the empty squares. If you switch to the last image (5), you'll see the color gamut chart of the Nexus 5, which is equipped with a well-calibrated IPS LCD screen. As you can see there, the dots, or actual measured colors, are much closer to the squares inside the triangle, and often fit right into place. That's how a color-accurate display is supposed to look. Back to the measurements of the Galaxy S5, we can acknowledge the fact that the measured gamut in Cinema mode is a bit closer to the reference sRGB one, but unfortunately the undersaturated red, in combination with the still-too-intensive green and blue makes for a pretty lifeless overall image.

Gamma

Now, let's move on to another very
important important component of a display - gamma. Gamma determines if
the levels of brightness are correct, considering the input material.
For example, if the maximum brightness of a display is 100 nits (and the
display is set to its maximum setting), then a 100% grey color (which
is white color) should be displayed with 100 nits. 10% grey color (which
is very, very dark grey), should be displayed with 10 nits. 50% grey
should be displayed with 50 nits, and so on. Generally, average gamma
should stand at 2.2, and the Galaxy S5 is very close to that number with
its 2.25 (in Standard mode). There are few handsets, like the iPhone
5s, which get even closer to 2.2, but overall, the S5 does perfectly
well in this respect, meaning that it's not trying to artificially make
things too contrasty (higher gamma often results more contrasty images).

Brightness

Now that we've proven that there's still a lot of work ahead of Samsung with regards to color accuracy, let's take a moment to discuss the company's claim of maximum brightness of up to 698 nits. In short, in 99% of possible usage scenarios, the Galaxy S5 cannot display content with such great brightness. With the phone's 'Adapt display' option switched to on, the Galaxy S5 can go up to about 440 nits while displaying a completely white screen - this is the standard way of testing a display's brightness. Now, 440 nits is a decent output, but it's obviously far from the 698-nit claim. So, how do you achieve such great brightness with this display?

Here's the answer - the brightness output of the AMOLED display depends on the content that's being shown at the moment. If it's just a white page, then all the power that the display has access to is distributed across the whole panel, allowing it to reach a maximum brightness output of 440 nits. If part of the displayed content becomes black or very dark, though, then those darker areas consume less power, allowing the Adapt display feature to route more power towards the brighter areas. This way, the brightness of those brighter areas can get over the 500-nit mark. As you can imagine, if we leave just a very small white area on the screen, with the rest being just black, this would allow for very high brightness for that area. Well, that's it! That's how you can get over 600 nits on the Galaxy S5, but, naturally, more often than not, your content will hopefully consist of more than a mostly black screen, which is why you'll rarely enjoy such high brightness output with the GS5. Most of the time, your real maximum brightness will be between 440 and 500 nits when outdoors, which is still very good. In comparison, quality IPS LCD screens, deliver comparable brightness output, which is why they exhibit similar visibility outside. An exception here is the iPhone 5s, which can crank the brightness up to about 580 nits, positioning itself in the lead.

The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x: CIE31' and 'y: CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.

The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.

Conclusion

Our goal with this article wasn't to prove that the screen of the Galaxy S5 is bad. Instead, our goal was to prove that it's not the best mobile screen there is, and that it's simply far from accurate, as a whole. It's an imbalanced display with a lot of drawbacks. However, it's also one that's admittedly eye-catching and impressive. So, if you're willing to sacrifice color accuracy for added punchiness, that's totally fine, but don't blame us when you play a video and skin tones start coming out orange-ish. Also, don't blame us if you order a pair of seemingly greenish sneakers, and you get yellow ones instead. Blame Samsung! That's the price you have to pay in exchange for those ultra-vibrant visuals.

While all the color measurements used in this article have been done by
us, we'd like to point out that other sources, including Erica Griffin and AnandTech have also reached similar conclusions - the Galaxy S5's screen is definitely not the best and most accurate mobile screen around.

Erica Griffin already did a test with Z2, HTC One, and S5 screen.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS5DlQIhLTM The screen of S5 isn't accurately calibrated. I bet you'll have eye cancer if you keep on staring at S5 screen. Its color is unnatural .

I guess BGR is in denial as well. Here's what they have said about S5's display, "It has the best mobile display the world has ever seen." "It’s just incredible." "Even the most hardened Samsung haters have to admit that the company does one thing incredibly well: Make gorgeous, eye-catching displays." PA has managed to do even better (or worse than) "even the most hardened Samsung haters."

yeah most of these pathetic Samsung haters have never seen the Galaxy S5 in real life. The truth is that these haters have burns in their bottom seeing Samsung as a top dog and getting record breaking sales. #FanboyismAtItsBest.

I own the note 3 and S5, S5 has more brighter screen than note 3 but colors looks saturated a lot plus the cinema mode on S5 that Samsung said it does give the most accurate colors has some weirdo yellowish tinge!

That's my point. BGR hates everything Samsung, but even they have hard time criticizing Samsung's AMOLED. It's hard to top BGR, but PA is looking more like BGR everyday, and in some cases does better, as in this case.

We'll just have to wait and see :P Sometime I think color accuracy and what user's preference are completely different things. Nevertheless, I still think S5 got a pretty good screen, but I'm sticking with my Z2 :D

problem with this preference theory is...
-if their preference happen to be the greenish artifical samsung AMOLED screen, its just "preference"
-if their preference is the accurate iphone ips screen, its not "preference",its call i-goat,i-cow,dumbass fanboy

huh? im not trying to defend them but you can clearly see that their benchmark for screen color temperature is 6500 and they're using a nexus 5 as the reference device (with color temp closer to 6500).

Regular PhoneArena.com visitors know my opinion about OLED based screens. I always was saying that OLED based screens has a lot of and very important (essential) problems and until they are not solved OLED is not better than LCD.

Information rich articles are always welcome. Instead of those cheap articles like "Girl gets stuck in a storm drain trying to rescue fallen BlackBerry/iPhone" and so on. PhoneArena.com should work more on information quality!

Actually no one cares about you PA with this stupid articles and your favorite iphone...! Its your stupid opinion with more stupid reasons...! Bias website...learn some from GSMarena....! I trust displaymate far from you... go with your bullsh...t iphone display Iphone arena...! Nonsense....!

Looks like oled haters (PA)... Are not happy with improvements in OLED....
I would trust displaymate,gsm arena more than ericca griffin and ray.s...
More than that....i found s5's displayto be best display regardless of expert's reviews....

How I'm a fanboy????
I like amoleds...and people like you suddenly start to believe PA and erica griffin over DISPLAYMATE and GSMARENA...just because they favour your thoughts...you are pathetic hater.....

you mean...you believe every site that say amoled is good,and disbelieve every site that say amoled is inaccurrate, that "not" very fanboy behavior indeed.scientific term for this kind of behavior is "confirmation bias",go google

i don't object people "prefer" fake artificial inaccurate color,just don't confused prefered color and accurate color. you calling amoled the best screen because you personally like it,not because its the best,nor did the author wrong in anyway

Even me I thought that Samsung did a great job with S5 Super Amoled really like the new Super Amoled on note 3 and S5. But after I compare it to nexus 5, IPhone 5S, M8 I found that IPS LCD still looks brighter and more accurate and the most important thing it's more comfortable to eyes than Super Amoled.

Well it doesnt matter if S5 show real colors or not... we know from long time that Amoleds doesnt show accurate colors, its not any hidden secrete. so whats the point of this report?
The matter of fact is that S5's screen is so sharp, bright n vibrant in colors that other dull so called real to life displays doesnt even comes close and this fact made it the best display ever

Just read all the comments, boy the butthurts here are goldmine, if they were really gold I'll be rich in no time... :)))))))))

my observation here in PA, when PA post an article, where, iPhone is bashed or criticized, they all agree... but when it comes to their Shamesung, SameSung, they accuse PA as biased. LOL.

For crying out loud, AMOLED are overrated. There's reason why others don't use that panel, because of that severe unnatural color! The hype of Super Amoled are really catchy that's why others call it the best just because of the word "SUPER" i bet there will come a time, they'll call it HYPER amoled, and in 2030 SUPER DUPER HYPER AMOLED. and those zombies will sure come and buy for that marketing bullsh*t..

I don't really care if AMOLED loses or not. I hate Samsung's flagship S phones but have always loved the Note line. However, when and if i do downgrade, i'd pick Sony/HTC or heck even an iPhone over the S-phones.

With that being said though, I still find these results inconsistent. Displaymate (a far more established reviewer for display technologies than an amateur author on PhoneArena is) has the S5's display as being the best amongst today's flagships. PA has completely conflicting results, which would make you question DisplayMate, but that maximum brightness figure... despite their own tests proving that the S5's outdoor visibility is the best among the competition, they have it as among the lowest in this comparison? What? Inconsistent much?

Actually, the full paragraph by AnandTech reads the following: "While Samsung has done a great job in clamping down the white point to around 6504k, grayscale is so noticeably green that not only does CalMAN show this in the measurements, but also casual observation. I can literally see that the grayscale image is not gray, but an off-green. I’m not quite sure how this happened, but I suspect that this was done in an effort to increase peak brightness as even in the bluest display mode, green is still closely tracking with blue."

This comes to prove one major point - there's just too much green in that screen, rendering it inaccurate and oftentimes weird-looking.

IPS = True to life. Just because your life sucks and is so boring and colourless and you don't have a girl to add flair and spice things up, you turn to samsung and their inability to make displays using a dying technology.

Ray. S we all know that PA mostly doesn't like Samsung and your articles from the people who are familiar with this matter won't be taken seriously. But why you didn't take the information from display mate? A lot more education and technology. So they are lying... Problem is not the screen and what users are saying, problem is that you don't like Samsung. Admit it PA and all good....

Display mate : best smartphone display...most accurate colors...beautifull picture quality... I think these are enough..! Common iray is ... why being jealous of display mate these words.. have a cold shower then u feel better boy...!

...why would you so blatantly manipulate a well-known source to try to lie like this? at what point did you possibly think you would get away with proof-texting like this? if you care about the silly fanboy wars enough to do something so desperate like this, did you never stop to think about the impact when it obviously came out that not only were you wrong, but you were blatantly trying to manipulate the truth?

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